Dealer in Rare and First-Edition Books: Western Americana; Mystery, Detective, and Espionage Fiction

"Queen" Of The Desert. The Real Story Of Mary Devitt Laird. Joy, Utah

by Jody Tesch Sorenson

First edition. 8vo. Pictorial stiff wrappers, 100 pp., dedication, content, prologue, illustrations. In the spring of 1875, 17-year-old Mary Alice Ann Devitt made the two-day journey north from the only home she’d known, to relocate with her family on the banks of the Red River in the Dakota Territories. Little did she know that this would be the beginning of a lifelong journey of deception and pain, emotional damage of bigamy, the loss of her child, and finally facial disfigurement that branded her “No Nose Maggie” for her life and beyond. Her indomitable spirit, zest for life, and desire to “follow the money” would carry her cross-country from Fargo, North Dakota to the Pacific Northwest; then down the coast to San Francisco, California, over to Virginia City and Pioche, Nevada; and finally, northeast to the wild life of the mining towns of Utah on the Great Salt Desert. It was there she survived for 40 years only to end up alone in a ghost town on the desert’s edge. She called it home, but others referred to this hell hole as “JOY.” As new.